How Do I Get It Home?
Cedar Lee December 3rd, 2008
Okay–the next question from my Art FAQ list is “How do I get this home?”
Finally, a question with a simple answer!
If you are local to me (within an hour’s drive) I have no problem either arranging a convenient pick-up time for you or delivering and installing the work in your home for free. This is a nice thing I like to do, especially for people who don’t have a vehicle large enough to transport the work themselves.
If you are not local, I will ship you the artwork. Depending on the size of the artwork, shipping may cost anywhere from about $10 (for a small piece) to $100 and up if you are buying very large pieces. If a person buys multiple pieces, I often provide a discount on shipping or sometimes even free shipping.
For large pieces, I always build custom shipping crates. I pad all the edges of the painting with a type of foam tubing normally used for insulating copper pipes.
Then I build a crate that fits very snugly around the edges of the painting so it cannot shift at all. I use pine 1x2s or 1x3s for the 4 edges and Masonite hardboard for the front and back. I assemble it all with wood screws.
When the painting reaches its owner, he or she simply removes a few screws to open the crate.
I started using this method for shipping artwork a few years ago when I read a helpful tutorial by a fellow artist in one of my online art communities.
For small pieces, I still usually pad the edges of the work with foam, but I will build a box out of sheets of cardboard instead of a wooden crate.
Never has one of my paintings failed to reach its destination safely.
When buying from any responsible art gallery, getting the artwork home should likewise be an easy process—it is standard for galleries to arrange for shipping or delivery of large artwork for a reasonable fee.
But once you get it home, how do you hang it? Next time I’ll explain in detail my simple formula for hanging any piece of wall art at eye level!
In personal news…
I recently went to New York City for 4 days to visit my brother. It was awesome! We saw a great improv comedy show, ate falafel and pizza, and went shopping for books and candy.
This is me with the brother in question, circa last year:
During my trip, I lost my glasses somewhere in the buzzing hive of the city. There’s no telling what happened–did they slide out of my purse onto the floor of a shop or restaurant when I pulled out my wallet? Were they crushed under hundreds of feet in the crowded subway? I only need glasses for driving and watching movies, but they were my only pair.
I have since been to the eye doctor and ordered new glasses, which I will get this week. The new frames I picked out are snazzy and stylish, and I’m pretty excited about them. This time I am also getting a cheap backup pair.
While I was in New York, I also managed to pick up a nasty cold virus, which flattened me for several days last week and still has a grip on me, although I’m out of bed and working now. Sadly, I missed Thanksgiving day with my husband’s family because I was sick.
My puppy, now going on 5 months old, has suddenly become more destructive than ever before. My vet predicted that he was about to enter a bad “chewing phase.” Apparently this is typical, although I don’t remember it being this bad with my first dog.
Oh man. He has begun chewing on the corners of all the books on the bottom 2 shelves of my bookshelf. He destroyed his own bed, pulling out all the stuffing. He is methodically pulling up strands of fiber out of the rugs and chewing them. He steals clothing from the hamper and chews on it–heaven forbid we forgetfully drape a shirt over the back of a chair! He has now started stealing brushes and tools from my studio. He found and destroyed all my wooden coasters. He even ate my chapstick.
The only thing keeping me patient is the knowledge that he is just a teething baby, and it’s temporary, and he will respond to our training if we are consistent.
Ahh! Stress!! C’est la vie. Christmas is coming up and I am feeling the crunch of deadlines. I’m just going to be as productive as I possibly can this month, and that will have to be good enough. I’m working on a couple commissions as well as additions to some of my ongoing series.
Here are a couple pictures of my studio today:
Canvases awaiting paint.
Messy desk.
I seem to have a lot going on at once right now. I’ll have new paintings to show you soon!
Hey Cedar! Great tutorial. Thank you for sharing that! Larry is a gem.
I couldn’t help but sympathize with the chewing situation. What’s always worked for us is to give the puppy their own pair of old shoes, preferably sneakers, that they are allowed access to and they will tend to go for them instead of everything else. They like them because they have your smell on them and the rubber soles are nice and sproingy for chewing. Good luck!
Nancy(NDee)
Thanks Nancy! We have Kong toys and tennis balls and rubbery bones, etc. (all of which he loves) but at the moment he doesn’t seem to have any discrimination about what’s okay to chew and what’s not. Today he found a pen–luckily I realized it and got it away from him just in time, before there was ink *everywhere.* Arghh!
I probably have an old pair of sneakers in a closet somewhere, so I might try that…although I’m a little hesitant to sanction the chewing of any shoes. I can just see him straddling one of my favorite boots, looking at me like “but you said shoes were fair game!” Maybe if I can find a really groty old pair that hardly look like shoes anymore…hmm.
Thanks for the support! I think people who don’t have dogs often think we’re crazy for putting up with such things.
I miss my chewing dog but the rabbits are fantastic. They eat the weeds in the garden and they give me plenty of clean poop. But you can’t play with them or take them to the beach. Chasing them into their pen is a great way to burn off all that chocolate I ate yesterday!!
Haha! If I ever live out in the country, I’ll have rabbits and chickens and maybe a goat.
Hi Cedar,
This post was very useful! I had a couple of questions about how you transport your paintings though-
1) How long do you wait for the paintings to dry completely so you can easily ship/transport them?
2) Have you ever tried to transport wet paintings? If so, how did you go about doing that?
3) Also, if you have a picture of how the paintings look inside the box with the padding, that would help a lot!
Thanks do much!
-Remya
Hi Remya,
I wait until my paintings are completely dry before shipping. I once made the mistake of shipping oil paintings that were still tacky, and the padding I used around the edges left marks on the paintings. I had to travel to NC to touch up the paintings in the gallery where they were sent. It turned out fine but was a big pain!
How long they take to dry depends on what kind of paint you’re using, and the temperature, humidity & air flow where they are drying. I mostly use water-mixable oils with a fast-dry medium. After one week if the temperature is warm enough they’re usually dry, but 2 weeks is safer. Acrylics are dry the same day they’re painted! (Although I varnish all my acrylics, which takes another 3 days to dry completely.) As a general rule, you want to be able to touch the surface of the painting without it feeling sticky.
I’ve had to transport wet oil paintings in my car back when I was in college–I had to lie them flat on cardboard or old sheets with nothing touching them. I’ve never shipped a wet painting, but if you absolutely had to, I’d say it would be possible, with great care, to build a box around a wet painting so that nothing touches the face of the painting. But the edges of the painting would have to be dry or unpainted. The painting would have to be very tightly wedged in its box to prevent any shifting.
Since this post, I’ve written my own tutorial on building a shipping crate–there are pictures there: http://www.artbycedar.com/blog/how-to-build-a-shipping-crate-for-art/